The religion of the vending machine is a cold thing. It asks God for actions by plugging the nickel in the slot and expecting the gumball out the bottom (the older of us will remember what gumball machines were – all others: Google it). As I sat in churches before I was saved it seemed to me people were carrying bags of nickles. They were plugging in $2.50 before God finally dropped the gumball. My thought then was: why spend $2.50 here when you can go to the store and buy a gumball for 5 cents?
We have to be careful not to deal with God in our thinking, becoming requisitioners seeking for stuff, and not being children talking to their father. We pay with nickles, we plead with nickles, we sweat with nickels when God just wants to give us the gum.
I can’t come at Scripture with preconceived ideas, imposing them on the word. Yet I can’t get so analytical that I won’t listen to the voice of God. For example, I came at Psalm 26 and said, “What are these words saying?” But I can get so argumentative about what this and that verse says that I don’t hear, or put away from me, what the Holy Spirit may be saying. “This verse shows that a man does this and expects God to do that.” “but God is not supposed to be that way.” “do not bring outside things to the Word, look at what the Word says.”
Maybe being in some other part of the Word than what is being taught in church is good because you are not likely to bring the pastor’s teaching to the Word. You are in the Word yourself and God can talk without (much) interference. To balance: hearing the viewpoint of others, particularly those practiced in the Word, can provide value you would not otherwise get.
